This is part 1 in “Cultivating Our Gut Microbiome to Stifle Disease”
We might be on the verge of a new medical paradigm if what scientists are discovering about the microbiome ever makes it into the doctor’s office.
In this series, “Cultivating Our Gut Microbiome to Stifle Disease,” we’ll share how the latest developments on this medical frontier are transforming our approaches to illness and offering new strategies to heal and prevent disease.
Modern medicine has progressed in large part by waging war against germs—snuffing out microscopic disease-causing creatures before they kill us.
The 19th-century discovery that microorganisms are the cause of infectious disease—the leading cause of death at the time—led scientists to the consensus that “germs” posed a great danger to humanity, a stance that’s been woven into policy and ideology to this day. Public health advancements in the 20th century proved that controlling infectious outbreaks extended life expectancy and reduced infant and maternal deaths.
